Alois Benziger

Alois Benziger, Bishop of Quilon, colored photo, ca.1920

Bishop Alois Benziger (right) with his consecrator, Archbishop Ladislaus Zaleski , 1900

Alois Benziger, Bishop of Quilon, ca.1930

Alois Benziger OCD , also Aloysius Maria , (actually Adelrich Benziger ; born January 31, 1864 in Einsiedeln , Switzerland; † August 17, 1942 in Trivandrum, today Thiruvananthapuram , Kerala , India ) was a Catholic priest , Carmelite Father , Bishop of the Quilon Diocese in India as well as titular archbishop of Antinoë .

Life

Alois Benziger was born as Adelrich Benziger on January 31, 1864 in Einsiedeln, Switzerland. Benziger's parents were the publisher Adelrich Benziger and his wife Marie nee. Cook. According to the will of the father, the son should take over the renowned Benziger publishing house - also publisher of the writings of the Holy See - which is why he was sent to the “Commercial Musterschule” in Frankfurt am Main in 1878 ; previously he attended grammar school at the Benedictine collegiate school in Einsiedeln . He also took private lessons in religion and history from the priest historian Johannes Janssen . In Frankfurt he also came into contact with Josef Hergenröther , a church historian and later cardinal, whom he chose to be his confessor. Both people had a great influence on the young student. The desire to become a priest awoke in him. The father initially opposed this request. Since the publisher also had a branch in New York , he sent his son - after boarding school at the Institut Saint-Louis in Brussels - to study language at Downside College in Bath , England. There he was in the care of the Benedictine abbot Francis Aidan Gasquet , a later cardinal.

The decision to join the priesthood finally became clear in the young Benziger. In Brussels he got to know the order of the “Discalced Carmelites”, into which he wanted to enter. Before that, however, he went to Eichstätt , where he studied philosophy in the winter semester of 1883/84 and was a member of Helvetia Eystettensis . It is not known where he subsequently studied theology. From 1884 he attended the novitiate of the Carmelites and on May 28, 1885, he made the simple religious profession with the Discalced Carmelites in Bruges . He received the religious name "Aloisius Maria"; on May 28, 1888 he made his solemn profession in Ghent and was ordained a priest on December 23, 1888 in the cathedral there .

Missionary in India

Aloisius Benziger wanted to be a missionary. His order was entrusted with the mission in South India, and he was sent as a professor to the Puthenpally Seminary, Alwaye, where he arrived on September 29, 1890. Already there he dealt - outside of his actual tasks - with the oriental liturgies of the Jacobites , an ancient oriental community that counts among the Thomas Christians and had its priest candidates - although not Catholic - trained in various subjects at the Catholic seminary in Alwaye. This contact with the Jacobites was to be of great importance in Benziger's later life. First, however, the Apostolic Delegate of India and Ceylon , Archbishop Ladislaus Zaleski, came to the Puthenpally Seminary on one of his inspection trips in 1892 and met Benziger. He was so enthusiastic about the young Carmelite priest that he asked him to be the episcopal secretary and took him to his residence in Kandy , Ceylon. In Friedrich Donauer's Benziger biography "On the Apostles' Path in India" (1944) it says:

“Archbishop Zalesky, as Apostolic Delegate, was in charge of all Roman Catholic missions in East India, that is, an area that was about half the size of all of Europe, including Russia, and in which 300 million people lived. His next colleague was Father Alois Benziger, who took care of the secretarial business independently. Letters from all parts of India, reports, requests, complaints, complaints and calls for help got into his hands. He had to write the answers to the Indian bishops, initiate negotiations, assign missionaries, and resolve difficulties. It was his job to keep Rome informed; he was responsible for drafting the inspectorate's reports. These inspectorate reports presuppose that Father Benziger also went on the inspection trips. In this way he got to know all of India, the countries, the peoples and states, their kings and princes, the different races and religions, the character of the individual tribes. "

According to the Apostolic Delegate, Benziger became the best expert on the Indian mission, its successes and achievements, but also its weaknesses and problems. He was fluent in the dominant national language, English, thanks to his studies at home. Even Ferdinand Maria Ossi from Belluno in Italy, the bishop of the diocese of Quilon United, which included all the southwest of India, was impressed by the characteristics and personality Benzigers. Because of the size of his diocese, he would have liked to have an assistant bishop and would have liked Aloisius Benziger, of whom he wrote: “Among the local missionaries I cannot think of any more useful and none who could work better with me in the management of the diocese than he. "

Mission Bishop

Bishop's residence with an episcopal chapel in Quilon. Bishop Benziger lived here for more than 30 years.

Rome granted this request. Benziger was appointed titular bishop of Tabae and coadjutor (auxiliary bishop) of the Bishop of Quilon on September 22, 1900 . He received his episcopal ordination on November 18, 1900, by the Apostolic Delegate Zalesky in Kandy. All major trips within and outside the new diocese fell to the assistant bishop, as Ossi was already a little sick. In 1902, Benziger survived a railway accident between Madras and Bombay : As a tropical storm destroyed a bridge, a train drove into a river, killing 75 people. In 1905 Ossi went on a vacation trip to Europe. Not used to the gas lighting there from India, he forgot to close the gas tap the first night and died on August 16 in Ghent from gas poisoning. Auxiliary Bishop Benziger succeeded him as Bishop of Quilon. With restless work he led the diocese and completely transformed it. He traveled incessantly to the parishes in order to be present locally, founded monasteries, schools, hospitals, built churches, called new orders and sustainably promoted the next generation of priests. As early as 1906, he brought the Sisters of the Cross from Menzingen, whom he knew - predominantly Swiss people - to his diocese. Benziger lived an ascetic and vegetarian life, but smoked cigars.

Memorial plaque to the founding of today's Syro-Malankar Catholic Church on September 20, 1930 in the bishop's chapel of Quilon.

Benziger's interest in oriental liturgies resulted in a friendship with the Jacobite Archbishop Geevarghese Mar Ivanios Panicker . This and his suffragan Bishop Mar Theophilos of Tiruvalla belonged to a group that was looking for a lasting connection to Rome. Benziger revised the Jacobite missal (West Syrian liturgy) slightly with Mar Ivanios and took the two bishops, several priests and numerous believers, on behalf of Pope Pius XI. into the Catholic Church. The solemn act took place on September 20, 1930 in the house chapel of the Bishop of Quilon. Then the first Holy Mass was celebrated immediately in this newly created rite of the Catholic Church. Today it is an oriental branch of the Catholic Church under the name Syro-Malankara Catholic Church and in 2009 comprised almost 500,000 believers in several dioceses. In the episcopal house chapel in Quilon, a plaque set into the wall commemorates the event.

Benziger retired on July 4, 1931 because of increasing health problems. During his pontificate as Bishop of Quilon, the diocese took off considerably. Between 1905 and 1931 the number of Catholics grew from 89,000 to 226,665, conversions to the Catholic faith from 415 to 96,615, the number of churches from 169 to 335, monasteries from 4 to 24, nuns from 20 to 240, and priests from 51 to 108 and the number of students in church schools from 5152 to 25,700.

Bishop Benziger (front left) with other Indian bishops. In front, on the far right, Archbishop Mar Ivanios, with whom he had realized the church union and the establishment of the Syro-Malankar rite in 1930.

Benziger retired as a simple Carmelite priest in the Carmel Hill monastery of Trivandrum (now Thiruvananthapuram ). On July 23, 1931, he was awarded the rank of titular archbishop of Antinoë by the Pope . Benziger died on August 17, 1942 in Carmel Hill Monastery and was buried there too. At about the same time as his resignation, the southern part of the large diocese of Quilon was separated and the new diocese of Kottar was formed from it. In 1937 the northern part of the diocese was divided up again into the current Latin dioceses of Trivandrum and Quilon. The Syro-Malankars have had an independent hierarchy since 1932 and are no longer subject to the Latin bishops. There is a separate Syro-Malankan Catholic Archdiocese of Trivandrum and several other Syro-Malankar bishoprics, all of which go back to Bishop Benziger's missionary work. In Quilon itself, the “Benziger Hospital” and a “Bishop Benziger Nurse School” were named after the bishop.

literature

• M. Arattukulam: Latin Catholics of Kerala. Pellissery Publications, Kottayam (India) 1993, 459 pages.
• Friedrich Donauer: On apostles in India, the Swiss Bishop Aloisius Benziger. Benziger Verlag, Einsiedeln 1944, 151 pages.
• Walter Heim: Benziger, Alois Maria. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . 2002 (with links to articles about father and brother).
• Marieli and Rita Benziger: Archbishop Benziger, Carmelite in India. 1977.
• Bernadine Vallathara: Archbishop Benziger. Carmel Publishing Center, Trivandrum (India) 2006, 288 pages.
• Benziger, Adelrich. In: Siegfried Schieweck-Mauk: "... unforgettable years." Swiss students at the Episcopal Lyceum Eichstätt (1848-1912). SH-Verlag, Cologne 2007, p. 219f.

Web links

Commons : Alois Benziger  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Entry on Alois Benziger on catholic-hierarchy.org ; accessed on December 27, 2016.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ On Ferdinand Maria Ossi see: Entry on Ferdinand Maria Ossi on catholic-hierarchy.org .
2. ↑ For the Sisters of the Cross from Menzingen see Sisters of the Holy Cross / Menzingen .
3. ↑ On Mar Ivanios see Johannes Madey
   Kurian Valuparampil:  PANICKER, Geevarghese Thomas Mar Ivanios. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 6, Bautz, Herzberg 1993, ISBN 3-88309-044-1 , Sp. 1478-1481.
4. ↑ http://www.syromalankara.org/metropolitan-jacob-mar-theophilos.html (link not available)
5. ↑ For the diocese of Kottar see Welcome to Kottar Diocese: A Vibrant Missionary Diocese in India! ( Memento of May 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive ).
6. ↑ History ( Memento from July 20, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
7. ^ Bishop Benziger School of Nursing in Kollam India . India9.com. June 7, 2005. Retrieved September 23, 2010.

predecessor	Office	successor
Ferdinand Maria Ossi	Bishop of Quilon 1905–1931	Vincent Victor Dereere